Problems with wireless (lag spikes)

[whysoserious2009]

Hi guys, i recently signed up to virgin medias 10mb broadband package and it seems to be running fine ...all apart from my wireless connection.
For some reason whenever i try to play an online multipayer game using the wireless i seem to get lag spikes every few seconds within the game which is starting to frustrate me a little bit as it messes up the game play.

The router that VM sent me is a WGR614v9 netgear router.
It works fine for downloading files and browsing the web but it just seems to be the game that it has problems with.
My first thoughts was to try and update the firmware for the router but after some research i discovered VM uses their own custom firmware so anything from the official netgear site probably wouldnt work so now im just kinda stuck as to what to do or try next to fix this issue

Anyone have any ideas i could try or any info regarding this?...be much appreciated
Thanks.

[rogerdraig]

any other stuff nearby on the same frequencies ? i had to move and eventually change my house wireless phone as it could effectively block the laptop from the router lol

i have noticed any thing with a motor in it can if close enough to router or my laptop interfere with speeds too

i would also see if its close to other kit that just moving it or them may help before delving into settings on the router

[Ben B]

Have you tried a different wireless channel and changing the setting to G only rather than g and b?

[whysoserious2009]

any other stuff nearby on the same frequencies ? i had to move and eventually change my house wireless phone as it could effectively block the laptop from the router lol

i have noticed any thing with a motor in it can if close enough to router or my laptop interfere with speeds too

i would also see if its close to other kit that just moving it or them may help before delving into settings on the router

Thanks for the input, theres nothing i can think of really that would be interfering with the wireless signal apart from a tv but i dont think that runs at the same frequency...although i did move it nearer to the centre of the room which gave me a bit more signal strength from around 80+ to now 90+

I think its an issue that goes a bit deeper then just signal strength though as its fine generally but then just suddenly seems to drop for a second or two.



Have you tried a different wireless channel and changing the setting to G only rather than g and b?

Im not too clued up about wireless to be honest but i managed to change the settings as you advised with still no luck really.
Even turned off the routers firewall.

A downloaded a program called vistumbler that shows a graph of my signal strength between my computer n router and ive noticed that even with my computer on idle the program seems to show that it suddenly drops connection for a split second every so often.
Im just wondering now if theres anything i can do to figure out if its my computer causing this like a memory problem or the actual modem itself.

Is there any detailed network monitoring tools perhaps that i could work with?


http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/8898/asdasdgbx.jpg

[Kymmy]

Picture replaced with LINK. Can people please resize images to a reasonable level before posting on the site.

[whysoserious2009]

Picture replaced with LINK. Can people please resize images to a reasonable level before posting on the site.

Sorry my bad.


*Update on my situation
I think ive figured out whats causing these lag spikes now.
Done some googling and discovered something called the windows vista 60 second lag spike problem.

Basically for some reason windows vista causes a slight time delay every 60 seconds which for something sensitive to ping like online games makes it a lot more noticable and causes ingame lag spikes.
I can confirm its this because of two reasons:-

1. Typing ping -t (routerIpaddress) i notice the lag spike at every 60 second intervals.

http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/1981/56483429.jpg

2. Got a stop watch and timed when the lag spikes occured in the game and sure enough it happened every 60 seconds on the dot.


I'm sure theres a way to fix this somehow so if i can manage to do it ill post again with the info just incase anyone else has the same probs...
(and there should be a few people concidering it seems to be a problem with windows vista itself.)

[whysoserious2009]

K got it fixed.

Basically whats happening is a service on windows vista called "WLAN AutoConfig" automatically checks to see if theres any wifi access points to connect to every 60 seconds and when it does this it causes a slight hiccup which makes you experience lag spikes.
Because this is crucial to enable your wifi to work you can't just disable it else your wifi will stop working but there are things you can do to stop it happening.

The thing that worked for me is downloading a small program called Vista AntiLag which you can get from here:-
http://www.codecase.de/en/software/downloads/folder/17-vista-antilag

Its a free easy small clean little program that only takes 1 click to work and once you've activated it you just minimize it to the system tray and then play the game or whatever you want without experiencing any lag spikes anymore.

IF this doesnt work though then theres also other ways of doing it you just need to google "vista 60 second lag spike" or something similiar and then follow the instructions you find to fix it.

[rogerdraig]

hmm must remember that